Black British Filmmaking Gets A Boost

It’s a Sunday afternoon in Notting Hill in west London. People are milling around the foyer of the Coronet cinema, in anticipation of the film that’s about to start. It’s not the latest Harry Potter or Hollywood action blockbuster, though. These 300 people – mostly black British men and women age 25 and upwards, with some young children and teenagers in tow – are there to watch the first offering from Rapture Film Club, a new monthly club dedicated to the screening of black films.

Twenty years ago, during the heyday of black British film, clubs of this kind were common. Now, it seems, they are returning.